History of my mom's side of the family:
**Senius Petersen was born on September 28, 1880 in Voir, Hjorring, Denmark. As a young man he served in the King's Guard. In 1902, Senius married Jensine Petersen and gave birth to their first child, Gerhart in 1903. In 1905, he emigrated to the United States by himself to find a place to settle before sending for his wife and their son a year later. Their place of residence became Jacksonville, Shelby Co, Iowa where they farmed and raised their family. On March 18, 1907, Senius and Jensine welcomed a daughter (my Great Grandmother) named Elma Petersen. Elma went to school at the Jacksonville schoolhouse and worked as a housekeeper for a few families as a young woman.
**Daniel Dent was born on September 10, 1808 in West Rudham, Norfolk England. He married Mary Parsons on February 1833 and the couple made the voyage to America in 1836. Upon arrival, they settled in Hanover, Jefferson Co, Indiana and later gave birth to a total of nine children including William Henry Dent. William married Loretta Diane Gaer on the first of January in 1870. A few years later, they moved to Kirkman, Shelby Co, Iowa. Together they had eight children, one of which being Raymond Dent in 1878. Raymond grew up and married Lola Alberta Snyder. Later on in the spring of 1899, the two left Iowa in a covered wagon and drove 700 miles southwest to Dewey County, Oklahoma where they filed papers for a 160 acre homestead. It was here that they started a family, welcoming my Great Grandfather, Dallas Raymond. A few years later, the family moved back to Iowa where they lived next to the Redline Church of Christ which is where I still attend service with my family today. Dallas grew up and married Elma Petersen on January 22, 1927 at the Luthern Church in Jacksonville. Together, Dallas and Elma had two children, Darrell Dallas and my grandmother, Beverly Jean. Beverly married Edward Tolle and had my Uncle Brian and my mother, Brenda.
I enjoyed doing this blog because I found out a lot about where my family is from and how we got here. I knew that we were part Danish but I didn't know I was part English as well. It was also fun to look through all the old pictures that my grandma had of her relatives which I talked about above. I didn't have a whole lot of information available to me but what I did have was very useful and told me what I needed to know. Most of the info I have was from timelines and family trees that my great uncle had put together so we already had stuff lying around which was really convenient.I wish I could have researched my dad's family as well but I wasn't able to contact my grandparents to find out.
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